Murder of Innocence based on Laurie Dann, Classroom Murder, Winnettka, Illinois

A woman who killed one child and critically wounded five others in a shooting spree at a school yesterday took her own life after barricading herself inside a nearby house.Police in this affluent Chicago suburb said Laurie Dann, 30, who was described as having a history of emotional problems, was found shot to death on the second floor of the house where she had held police at bay for more than six hours. Very young children"They were all very young children," Winnetka Police Chief Herbert Timm said at the school. "She just walked into the room, walked past the teacher, indicated the gun was real and started firing at random."You have to ask yourself why. For the life of me I don't know why."Police say Dann entered the school and shot a boy in the washroom. She then entered a Grade 2 classroom, where she pulled a gun, spoke a few words and sprayed the room with shots, wounding five other children ranging in age from 7 to 9.One 8-year-old boy in the classroom died of a bullet wound in the chest.There were about 22 children in the classroom when the shooting started. They dived for cover and those who survived dashed through a door leading to the outside."There was blood all over the classroom and desks knocked over" as the children panicked at one-storey, red-brick Hubbard Woods Elementary School, said policeman John Ceglieski."Kids were hiding under the desk as well as they could," Timm said.Police in neighboring Highland Park said Dann started the day by trying to set a fire at another school, and was stopped at a day-care centre when she tried to enter carrying a can of gasoline.Investigators said she then set fire to the home of a family where she worked as a babysitter. The fire trapped the woman for whom Dann worked and two of her children but they managed to escape through a window.Another child in the family attended Hubbard Woods school but was out on a field trip when the incident occurred.After the shooting at the school Dann fled to a nearby house, where she shot a 20-year-old man who lived there.Neighbors of the family in whose home the rampage began said Dann had recently been told she would lose her job because the family was moving.

Police surrounding a house in the Chicago area, left, where an armed woman, who went on a shooting rampage yesterday, killing one child, and critically wounding five others, barricaded herself in before taking her own life. Parents comforting each other, right, outside the school where Miss Laurie Dann strode into a class of eight-year-olds and started shooting. Witnesses said she had three pistols. She apparently lined the children up against a wall and said: 'Kids, I'm going to teach you something about guns today, ' before opening fire. A police spokesman in Winnetka, Illinois, said: 'She just walked into the room, walked past the teacher, indicated the gun was real and started firing at random.' She shot another child in the corridor on her way out. Miss Dann then ran through a wood into a nearby house in the exclusive Chicago commuter suburb. Four members of a family and their maid escaped after a man of about 20 scuffled with the woman and was shot in the chest. He was critically ill in hospital last night. Three eight-year-old boys and two girls were also in critical condition. An eight-year-old boy died in hospital. Homes in the quiet suburb on the shore of Lake Michigan, north of Chicago, were evacuated last night as heavily armed police teams took up positions around the house where the woman was thought to have taken refuge. Police said the woman set fire to the house of the family for whom she worked before setting out on her rampage at the Hubbard Woods Elementary School. That family escaped through the basement. Police said it appeared she had become distraught after learning that her employers were about to leave the area. The FBI said Miss Dann, was aged 31, and they issued pictures of her, saying she had been the subject of previous investigations. They gave no details. The school kept all the surviving children in for the rest of the day, giving them counselling to help them cope with their ordeal. Television news showed shocked parents milling around outside the school two hours after the 11am shooting. A spokesman said: 'They don't know if their children were hurt or not.'

 The woman who went on a shooting rampage at a school apparently also delivered mysterious containers of juice to several homes and arsenic-laced snacks to a pair of university fraternities, police said yesterday.Three people who ate the snacks at Northwestern University's Alpha Tau Omega became seriously ill and were taken to hospital, Winnetka Police Chief Herbert Timm said. Six other people were treated and released at hospital. "The situation with Laurie has not ended," Timm said.The chief said Laurie Dann, 30, dropped off juice containers at the doors of six homes where she once worked as a babysitter.At one of the homes, the juice carried a note that read, "Love your little sisters. Enjoy."Boy killedOne girl felt ill after sipping the juice and another was taken to hospital as a precaution, Timm said. The juice was being examined last night.The developments added a bizarre twist to the case of Dann, who walked into Hubbard Woods Elementary School and opened fire Friday morning, killing Nicholas Corwin, 8, and wounding five other children. She later wounded a young man at a nearby home, where she holed up before killing herself.Four of the wounded children were listed in critical condition yesterday.Timm was not sure why Dann delivered arsenic-laced snacks to the fraternities, though "she did have a friend at the Northwestern campus."At Dann's Madison, Wis., apartment, Timm said, authorities found a list of people who received the drinks. They also recovered two vials containing a powdered substance.Meanwhile, hundreds of parents and children touched by the tragedy gathered at the school yesterday to discuss the shootings and offer prayers for the victims and for Dann.Police believe Dann became distraught when a family that hired her to babysit said they were leaving this affluent suburb of Chicago. Before the shootings, she tried to set fire Friday to the family's home and another school, police said.They also believe she tried to serve contaminated milk to the family's children.Threatening callsPolice found books about poison in Dann's Madison apartment.Those who knew Dann say her rampage was not a surprise."I had a feeling that this person was about to explode," said Fred Foreman, the county state's attorney. His office was trying to track down Dann for making threatening phone calls to an old boyfriend.Her ex-husband woke up one night in 1986 to find himself bleeding from a stab wound made with an ice pick. He suspected his wife, but police could find no link between her and the stabbing.The couple were separated at the time.Timm said that Dann had been seeing a psychiatrist, but he gave no further details.